Kevin Anthony saw firsthand the heartache and chaos left by Hurricane Ike.
So like any country musician worth his straw hat, the fifth-generation BOI took that heartache and wrote a song about it.
“Hurricane Ike,” a Cajun-influenced country track on his upcoming “North Star” album, tells of his family’s struggles after the storm.
About a week after Ike hit, Anthony, who now lives in Minnesota, came down to help his relatives clean up. He met up with his brother, who stayed on the island during the storm, and they made their way to their parents’ house on the West End.
“The streets had been plowed clear by the FEMA, but there were hundreds of boats and mountains of debris all over the place,” Anthony said.
After they got to 103rd Street, Anthony saw the toll the storm took on the area where his parents had lived since the 1950s.
“My family’s houses were damaged on the lower structures,” he said. “Everything that was in the garages was completely washed away. All of the garage doors and windows were missing along with the stairs and most of the walls.”
“Our barn where we had the last of the animals, a goat, was completely destroyed.”
Digging through the debris and muck, Anthony got a sinus infection — and inspiration.
Because the University of Texas Medical Branch was closed, he went to a temporary clinic on Stewart Road.
“I remember the doctor that saw me was wearing an odd collection of clothing,” Anthony said. “He had on a tourist T-shirt and gray polyester pants from the ’70s.”
The doctor who kept working after losing his house made a lasting impression on the musician.
“When I was cleaning up, I thought of the line from ‘Hurricane Ike’ — ‘He tried to wash us away but our roots were strong,’” Anthony said. “I think all Galvestonians can relate to that statement.”
After playing in bands on the island and Houston during school, Anthony and a friend left Galveston in 1993 to try their hand on the music scene. They landed a recording deal with a Warner Bros. label called F-111. The band, electro-land, stayed busy until the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, he said.
His partner joined the Marines, and the group was dropped from the label.
“Around about 2003, I was feeling a little burned out on the big city and wanted a change of scenery,” Anthony said.
He’d met a woman from Minnesota while working for MTV Networks and decided to go to Minneapolis.
He formed The Twin City Playboys as his backing band in 2005.
“To my surprise, there is a healthy music scene here that keeps me very busy,” he said.
After 15 years of northern exposure, Anthony still knows where his heart is.
“Even though my body is here, my soul is in Galveston Bay,” he sings.
That’s the place he first heard the fiddles play.
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At A Glance
Kevin Anthony’s first solo album, “North Star,” will be released in January. You can download the album through iTunes, Amazon.com, CDBaby.com or any other online digital store. The cards have a Web site address and a passcode that you enter to start the download. Those can be purchased now at www.tcplayboys.com or at a live show. A release party is in the works for Galveston in January.
